Saturday, February 21, 2009

Megan is talking about grading (wtf?!?! why?! The last thing she should want is for someone to think of analytic objective evaluation when they're reading her blog!)

It's mostly boring shit. She's actually discussing whether or not to judge people on merit or ability, an analysis that most of us knock-out in about five minutes when we're twelve. Naturally, Megan's wording is rather telling:

Is it fair to set the bar higher for me than for someone who isn't as capable? Or vice versa? Is it fair to send the signal to employers that I wasn't up to scratch even when I did objectively better work than some other student?

Who uses the first person singular pronouns when discussing hypotheticals? Don't people usually use "you" or "they" or, occasionally, "one?" No, not me! When I'm imagining a situation where I'm better than others, I like to make sure that I can connect with it! I wouldn't want the point of how superior I am to be lost on YOU the reader, now would I?

Maybe. After all, one of the things that employers and graduate schools are presumably looking for is ability to exert oneself consistently.

Alright, first of all, the word "maybe" DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN ENTIRE FUCKING SENTENCE YOU FUCKING GRAMMAR ASSASSIN!!!!! YOU'RE A FUCKING ENGLISH MAJOR! NO AMOUNT OF BRAINS OR WORK CAN ACCOUNT FOR THE FAILURE TO LEARN THE FUND-A-FUCKING-MENTALS OF THE FUCKING LANGUAGE YOU PURPORT TO "MASTER!"

Anyway, who's fucking surprised that Megan thinks that employers aren't looking to hire people that actually know shit? Clearly, it's not a phenomenon our muse has encountered directly. That must mean she views herself as a "hard working" type. I wonder how she figures that?. I guess it is difficult for her to throw out the occasional "rich people shouldn't be allowed to literally eat the poor" posts. Man, she really slaves away.

17 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Way back in the 60s when I was in high school, my dad's job included travel to college campuses and interviewing engineers, etc for jobs at the big oil company he worked for. I remember him telling about a guy who had pretty mediocre grades but he got them while taking a full load and working ~30 hrs a week. My dad was going to make this guy an offer because he obviously worked REAL hard. Grades aren't everything.

Umm, we can each, judging from the presence of the little "dustbin of history" in the comments to my posts, delete comments from our own posts, but brad, as founding editor, should be able to delete from all posts & comments. I think. Although there is usually a line that reads "comment deleted by author," if a comment is deleted.

(See my most recent post, where something was deleted, though not by me. I think the commenter, if using a Google ID, can delete their own comments.)

Too damn bad Bugger™ doesn't explain any of this anywhere easily available, but makes you go searching in their stupid "help" fora.

Ugh. Look, when I was working on the linguistics portion of my degree, the word nerds would literally argue for hours over "alright" and "all right."

NoT - whenever something is described as "common usage" or "informal usage" that means it is technically not a real word, but has become acceptable informally due to regular usage. The word "alright" began appearing around the late 1800s. Most editors of formal publications will correct it, but at informal writing, it's considered okay - another word that is technically not a word, but nobody lets their head explode when the see or hear it, for some reason.

Everybody's right, really. "Alright" wouldn't be considered a word by grammarians and strict linguists, but common usage has made it acceptable to employ on a regular basis without anyone ripping out their red pens to correct it unless it's their job to do so.

blivet,There are too many schools to break it down into a simple set of criteria, at least for English. It's not like French, where it's a word if the Academie Francaise says it is and nothing else. In general, it's things like history, origin and formality that are considered. Slang and misuse - think of words like "cool" to mean "good" - are considered generally acceptable informalities when spoken, though not when written.

About us

McMegan is awful, just awful, but at least she's no longer employed by The Atlantic. Still, no one can read her every day and live, so we've all but given up trying. Let's just be glad her upwards failure has leveled off.Posts here will likely remain few and far between, as will my tweets. M. is still at his place and twitter and now also Whiskey Fire, and Clem maintains well deserved alumnus privileges.